


And I wonder why it is

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, F/F, Mentions of Hook
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 08:17:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11100603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: Prompt: Swanqueen fic based on Living Room by Tegan and Sara-.-They didn’t speak during those times;  the houses were close enough for them to see each other, the fences between both houses close enough to have a decent view from each other’s places, but they didn’t speak.Each night, however, Regina stared as Emma cleaned herself in front of the mirror, the blonde always pretending that the older woman wasn’t there until she turned to gaze at her, one silent question glowing on her eyes, one Regina always answered with a nod of her own even though she wasn’t really sure what she was actually being asked.





	And I wonder why it is

[(x)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74ezTBSuKy0)

And I wonder why it is

It all started one Thursday afternoon, on a cold and rainy day in where the tapping of the droplets outside had drowned every other sound ever since Regina had entered on the house, umbrella on hand and safely tucked papers from the office against her chest. Henry was the one who saw the lights of the trucks first, calling for his mother as Regina checked on his homework, proud of his handwriting.

“We’re going to have new neighbors!” The ten-year-old boy exclaimed, his brown eyes drawn outside where two trucks had already stopped slightly at their house left. If it hadn’t been for Henry’s custom to look outside every minute or so -Mom, detective work IS important- their curtains wouldn’t have been slightly open and so they wouldn’t have seen the couple that got out of a third car, a beaten old yellow one, and who hurriedly walked towards the previously unoccupied house that stood next to both Regina’s and Henry’s.

“It seems so.” Regina said, smiling to the boy before going back to his homework, nodding to herself as she checked it. She could feel the boy’s eyes on her but she didn’t move a muscle nor changed her smile, knowing that Henry was indeed waiting for something else. Henry pouted for a moment, put back from his mother’s lack of interest, but moved towards Regina’s side and tucked his chin on his hand, not mentioning neither the new neighbors again for a while until dinner time in where he started to wonder what kind of people they could be, if they had a dog -like we could have!- if….

Regina promised him that she would eventually give some gift to them after Henry mentioned too many times to let it slide.

-.-

Next time Regina saw the newly moved in couple was a few days after that; as she walked towards her car, papers on hand as she gave an evil stare towards the greying sky. She didn’t see the woman until a voice reached her, a grinning face and twinkling eyes staring back at her once she turned towards the voice.

As she stopped and stared to the blonde woman that had started to live next to her she saw how the smile of the woman faltered slightly, twinkle disappearing for a second before the offered hand of the woman fell to her side, hooking the belt she wore with her thumb as she did so. The movement displaced the red leather jacket she was wearing, letting Regina see the badge that was already fastened to the belt.

“Swan…” She muttered, remembering just in time she had been informed that there was going to be a new deputy in town. Being a small town like they were all changes ended up being not only reported by gossiped to the point of exhaustion by the ones working either on the small law firm the city had or the mayoral office. She had heard of the new deputy but she hadn’t asked about it, not really wanting to succumb to gossip.

“That’s me. Emma Swan” The blonde provided with a nod, gleam returning to her lips. She didn’t offer her hand once again though, swinging on her tiptoes slightly just like Henry would do every time he had something to say but didn’t know where to start. The simile flustered Regina and bit on her bottom lip as she nodded, somewhat brusquely. “Although…” The blonde coughed and turned to look at the house next to Regina’s. Within the few days ever since the couple had moved in the abandoned place had regained some of the strength it had once had had and when Regina looked at it she could see a dark-haired man on the front door looking towards them in silence. The brooding look of the man didn’t sit well on Regina but she nodded towards him as the blonde, Emma, finished her line. “It’s more Swan-Jones these days.”

“I’ve always found that is always better to keep one’s last name.” Regina blurted out, not really sure of why her outburst but knowing deep down that it was actually a statement she wholeheartedly agreed with. Emma seemed surprised by her statement but nodded, somewhat meekly, before starting to fumble with the badge at her hip.

“I wanted to say hello.” She started after a few more tense seconds. “We moved in a few days ago, hadn’t had the chance to present ourselves but…” She shrugged, obviously not knowing what else to say. Regina would have said she looked endearing if it wasn’t by the prickling sensation of the man’s eyes on her, observing them both from the porch.

“I wish you both then a happy stay on Storybrooke then.” She said, her voice much more clipped-y than what she had intended. Sighing inwardly and walking around the blonde she turned towards her just as she opened the car doors with a quick twist of her wrist. “Have a good day Miss Swan.”

“It’s Emma!”

Those last words were lost as Regina started the car, lips pressed as she saw from the rear mirror how Emma shook her head to herself and turned, the man pushing himself aside from the doorjambs where he had been and kissed her twice, muttering something to her.

That day, when Regina was finally presented with the first of many paper forms signed with the name of Emma Swan she could not help but notice how after Swan something had been added but eventually erased.

-.-

Turned out that the third time Regina saw the neighbor was very close to the second time only a day after the last encounter with the blonde. It was nighttime and Henry had already go to sleep -or to pretend that he wasn’t reading under his bedsheets- and after a long, tiresome day Regina had decided to take a bath. Just as she entered on the small room already filled with the soft scent of her salt waters, she realized that in the white tiles of the floor an extra source of light made the silver decorations around the bathroom to shine slightly. Looking towards the small window she had there, one that was normally covered with curtains but not today since she had wanted to air the room a little bit, she saw the source of the light; the neighbors’ bathroom was alight and there, in the middle of the room and looking towards what Regina could only assume was a mirror, stood Emma, smiling lips upturned into a frown as she carefully cleaned herself, water running down her hands as she applied them again and again on her cheeks

Regina stood there, frozen, for an inane amount of time until she realized that her warm bathroom had probably run cold. Emma never turned to look at her and even though the brunette felt herself as if spying she could not turn away from the sight of Emma, not even when the blonde gave her back to the window and started to take of the top she wore. It wasn’t until a shout came from outside the blonde’s bathroom that Regina was awoken by her reverie. Taking a step backwards she swallowed, cheeks burning and eyes widening as she stared into the bright green eyes of Emma Swan as the blonde turned and hold its stare with one of her own, never saying anything but looking about to do it so until a second shout was heard and she moved away from the window, leaving Regina on her own bathroom feeling lightheaded and no clue of what had just happened.

-.-

For the next couple of weeks, however, even when Emma was finally presented to Regina as the new deputy and they both started to see each other during work day, whenever Emma brought Regina new papers in need to be signed or whenever they saw each other on Granny’s, neither of them commented on that night or what had happened. Nevertheless, each night Regina took a bath after she put Henry to sleep and, more often than not, Emma was also there, sometimes fully dressed, sometimes with hair disheveled enough for Regina to halt her thoughts and pretend that she wasn’t wandering what she, indeed was.

They didn’t speak during those times;  the houses were close enough for them to see each other, the fences between both houses close enough to have a decent view from each other’s places, but they didn’t speak.

Each night, however, Regina stared as Emma cleaned herself in front of the mirror, the blonde always pretending that the older woman wasn’t there until she turned to gaze at her, one silent question glowing on her eyes, one Regina always answered with a nod of her own even though she wasn’t really sure what she was actually being asked.

They stood like this, both of them looking into each other’s windows, until something else outside the small room called for them. Sometimes was Henry; the boy awoken by a nightmare and asking for Regina. Most of the times, however, was Killian’s fault.

Regina wouldn’t exactly call eavesdropping what she had been doing but after the first night she had asked Ruby, waitress extraordinaire and always willing to share a good gossip, what the name of the man was. The lanky brunette had told her between shushed whispers that the name was Killian and she couldn’t very well say anything else apart of how much he liked to drink. What Ruby had failed to tell her, however, was the man’s temper, temper that every other night she could see seeping from the blonde’s window to hers as she heard him calling for Emma until the blonde closed her eyes and nodded towards the door at her back; a silent goodbye Regina always took with pursed lips and clenching fists but accepted anyway.

It took them both almost a month before they spoke to each other outside work or their daily nod at Granny’s.

It happened on a pale cold morning.  Henry was already at School so Regina had stopped in Granny’s, asked for her usual and waited with her eyes set on some impending papers she was supposed to hand over to sign later in the day. A set of footsteps, however, made her look up from her papers just as Ruby placed her coffee in front of her, a chirpy smile already on her lips as she focused on her new customer, the one and only Emma Swan.

“Hot chocolate?” She asked just as Regina pretended to dig deeper even on her papers as she saw Emma’s nod from the corner of her eyes. The blonde’s pale fingers were pressed together against the counter, knuckles white, and for a second she lowered her own gaze to the blonde’s hip in where the Deputy’s badge was twinkling already.

“Late shift?” She asked, unable to help herself. She, however, stood her ground as Emma looked at her, apparently as disconcerted as Regina herself felt.

“Night shifts.” The blonde replied with a mumble, grey-rimmed eyes staring back at the older woman as Emma blinked slowly, tiredness obvious on the way her mouth fell slack every time she spoke. “Graham asked me to take the next week ones.”

“Tell him to not forget how he still owns me if you feel that he is pushing too hard.”

The comment came completely unbridged and Regina could feel Ruby’s gaze on her as the brunette deposited Emma’s beverage in front of her. The blonde took the drink and paid, eyes never leaving Regina’s as she smiled and, blushing slightly, nodding afterwards.

“I will keep that in mind.” She replied, a soft smile on her lips, her eyes glowing just like they had done the very first time they had seen each other. Regina nodded and made a crocked smile on her own, taking a sip of her drink and turning again to her papers.

The feeling of a strong hand on her elbow just as Emma passed next to her made her gasp through her teeth. She hid it with a cough but as she saw Ruby’s own cocky smirk just as she paid her own drink and exited the place, she realized that the waitress had probably realized what had happened.

Question was; what that was?

-.-

It was then perhaps, or maybe slightly afterwards, when her nightly routine became different, stranger. Still in silence they both addressed the other through gazes, both of them not really knowing what to say to the other, or even if they were even supposed to share anything even though they, after all, were two adult women standing in the middle of their bathrooms. Charged air as it was one day Regina closed her eyes and did something she had already seen coming from the blonde a dozen or so times; she turned and unbuttoned her shirt, fingers trembling as she worked on the buttons. Once she turned, however, the room was dark and there were no green eyes looking back at her.

Dejectedly, she let her hands fall to both sides of her torso, hugging it as she realized what she had indeed tried to do, what she had wanted to do.

Emma didn’t search for her after that for over two weeks, her green, green eyes looking at her from the other side of her desk office one day while offering Granny’s food neatly put on a small paper bag.

“You like root-beer?” She asked and Regina could only nod, realizing, for the first time, how far she was already gone.

After that every other weekday they both started to share their lunch hour. Regina never saw Killian and Emma never mentioned him.

-.-

She, however, did so the day Emma knocked on her door and told her with red-rimmed eyes that she wanted to leave Killian. “I can’t do this anymore.” She said while drinking tall glass of cold water after tall glass of cold water.

Regina didn’t ask what that anymore was until she helped the blonde through the process of speaking to the man, never leaving the woman’s side as he picked up his things, screaming and promising threats harsh enough for Regina to want to impale him. She didn’t ask nor commented though once, knowing that it couldn’t come from her, wouldn’t come from her.

She, however, answered to the tentative, fearful kiss the blonde gave to her a week and a half later, cider and smoke clouding her senses as she kissed the woman once again, whimpering.

And again, just for good measure.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come by to shadowdianne on tumblr or twitter if you want more prompts! I will be happy to answer them! ;)


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